After NetApp started with his new HCI last year, they have now announced new hardware for the HCI system.

New NetApp HCI COMPUTE nodes:

As the first HCI nodes were based on the Intel Haswell architecture, the new nodes will now have the Intel Skylake architecture. You can now configure the compute nodes more granularly.

The main focus is on the number of processor cores, which may be helps while planing licensing. In addition, we now see new nodes with 1TB of RAM. The predecessors were 768 GB of RAM.

New NetApp HCI VDI node H610C:

Another innovation is the frequently requested GPU variant for compute nodes. With the H610C, NetApp is now bringing a 2u node optimized for Windows 10 VDI environments to the market for its HCI.

The H610C is designed to run up to 128 Office desktops per node in a VDI environment. The H610C is equipped as follows:

2x nvidia Tesla M10 GPUs

Intel Skylake Xeon 6130 (16 cores @ 2.1 GHz)

512 GB RAM

Switches for HCI:

Well, finally. NetApp announced its own switches for its HCI system. So far, I had to rely on the customer already having 10 GB switches in use or even offering him 10 GB switches for the HCI from manufacturer XY, so I can now offer Melanox SN2010 switches directly via NetApp. The advantage? Support for the switches is taken over by NetApp. So no more ping pong of responsibilities.

The Melanox SN2010 comes with 18 SFP +/28 ports and can operate both 10GB and 25 GB Ethernet. By the form factor of half-width unit, the SN2010 also saves you a bit of space in the rack. You can use the four 40 GB ports to uplink to your existing infrastructure.

Fewer network ports:

While I was “forced” to provide at least four SFP +/SFP28 ports for each compute node in the first generation of Netapps HCI, NetApp now allows the use of only two ports. The prerequisite is, however, the use of VMware’s vsphere distributed switches. License!

New version of Element OS:

As we know, NetApp HCI is based on the Solidfire infrastructure. This is operated with the storage operating system element OS. Element OS will now appear in version 11 and offers you the following advantages and innovations:

SnapMirror to ONTAP Cloud

IPv6 Management Network support

Increase the maximum volume size to 16 TB

Support of various protection domains (keyword Rackawareness)

This are the hottest news from NEtApp HCI so far.

Greetings

Der Schmitz

DISCLAIMER: This post is my personal observation and is not officially authorized by NetApp or others. Misinterpretations or misunderstandings reserved.

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About DerSchmitz

Senior Consultant and Blogger from the beautiful Constance on Lake Constance. When I'm not in the middle of a data center, I advise clients in the IT infrastructure space. This includes storage, server, backup and cloud integration in IT infrastructures. In my free time I take care of my own garden where I grow my own fruit and vegetables.